Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/210

 186 AGESILAUS lake dwellings of Switzerland have afforded strong confirmation of this theory, and sup- ported the further opinion that the men of stone and the men of bronze were entirely distinct races. To the bronze age succeeded the men of iron. The antiquity of these ages is a matter of conjecture. The term MIDDLE AGES is applied to the period of several cen- turies separating the ancient and modern epochs of European history, considered by some as ex- tending from the fall of the western empire in 476 to the discovery of America in 1492 ; but other nearly synchronous events have been fixed upon for the beginning and end of the period. Properly speaking, there is no middle age in oriental history, but Hallam applies that term, for the Greeks and their eastern neighbors, to the era of Mohammed. The DARK AGES is a term applied in its widest sense to that period of intellectual depression in the history of Europe from the establishment of the barbarian supremacy in the 5th century to the revival of learning about the beginning of the 15th, thus nearly corresponding in extent with the middle ages. The last of the ancient authors was Boethius, after whose death, about 524, the decline of literature, prepared during several previous centuries, became inconceivably rapid. The darkest period for Europe generally was about the 7th century. The earliest sign of revi- val, however, was seen in Ireland as far back as the 6th. In the 10th Italy and England were in a deplorable condition of barbarism, while in France and Germany there was more or less culture, which increased considerably during the lltb. The comparative prosperity of scho- lastic learning in the llth and 12th centuries was followed by a relapse hi taste and classical knowledge which lasted through the 13th and 14th. AGESILArS, king of Sparta, was the son of Archidamus II., and the successor of Agis II. in 398 B. 0. He was not the legitimate heir to the throne, but Leotychides, his nephew, being suspected of illegitimacy, was set aside on the death of Agis, by the influence of Lysander, and Agesilaus substituted for him. Agesilaus, having received only the ordinary education of a Spartan citizen, was very popular with the mass of his countrymen, but he was lame and of small stature. Objection was made to him on this ground when Lysander, the conqueror of Athens, proposed him for the succession, and an augur prophesied against him. Lysan- der replied that a lame-footed king was better than a man who was not of pure Heraclidan blood. Agesilaus submitted to the restraints of a constitutional king and paid court to the ephori. Soon after his accession an expedi- tion against Persia was determined upon. Agesilaus, accompanied by Lysander, accepted the command, and was placed at the head of the council of war. He burst into Asia Minor, 396 B. C., and forced Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, to beg for a three months' truce, which was sworn to by both parties. It was treach- erously broken by Tissaphernes, but kept by Agesilaus from considerations both of principle and policy. After many successes in Asia Minor, he marched his army into the govern- ment of the satrap Pharnabazus. In a two years' campaign he brought his troops into the highest state of efficiency, and never allowed them to desecrate the temples of the foreign gods. Having overcome all the satraps in the neighborhood, Agesilaus conceived the gigantic scheme of penetrating to the heart of the Per- sian empire, and meeting the king of Persia face to face, as Alexander afterward did. The money of the Persian monarch, freely used in Athens and Thebes, had meantime stirred up in Greece itself a coalition against Sparta and her allies, and the ephori sent a messenger to Agesilaus recalling him. He returned from Asia Minor by way of the Hellespont through Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, fighting his way when he was opposed, and making the march in 30 days. Xenophon accompanied him. He met the anti-Spartan allies at Coro- nea in Bceotia (394), and won a well contested battle, in which he was severely wounded and many of his choice body guard of Spartans were slain. He regretted the Corinthian war, because it weakened in a fratricidal struggle those forces which, in his opinion, should have been turned against Persia. His bitter ani- mosity against Thebes led him to screen and support Phoebidas, the Spartan who treach- erously seized the citadel of Thebes; and ho also saved the life of Sphodrias, who made an equally unprincipled but less successful at- tempt upon the Piraeus. This conduct to states with which Sparta was at peace united Thebes and Athens, and they jointly declared war against the Lacedaemonians. Agesilaus was not present at the defeat of Leuctra (371), after which his state never regained its ancient ascendancy ; but he defended the city of Sparta with success against Epaminondas and his al- lied army. His son Archidamus soon after- ward gained an easy victory over the Arcadi- ans, which revived the drooping courage of the Lacedaemonians. The impoverished condition of Sparta after Leuctra was partly remedied by the benefactions of Agesilaus, who gave up to the state all the money and presents which he had received from various oriental poten- tates. The last scene of his life was held by the Greeks to have been unworthy of his re- nown. He agreed to aid Tachos, an Egyptian revolter against the Persian monarch, with a band of Laconian mercenaries. When he landed he slept on the shore on straw and under the open sky, though more than 80 years old. The Egyptians could hardly believe that the ill-clad, mean-looking little old man whom they saw before them was he who once held the destinies of Greece and Persia in his hands. Tachos would not give him the supreme con- trol of the land forces, but offered him the post of second in command after himself. This dis- gusted the old soldier, and when Nectanabis